


Wait

by Liz_isa_fangirl



Category: Disney Duck Universe, Disney Ducks (Comics), DuckTales (Cartoon 1987), DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Childhood Memories, Duck family headcanons, Family Feels, Gen, vunerable gladstone gander
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-07-02 11:00:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15795144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liz_isa_fangirl/pseuds/Liz_isa_fangirl
Summary: When Daphne Duck and her husband Goosetave Gander pass away unexpectedly - at a picnic no less - the entire Duck-McDuck family is devasted, especially their young son Gladstone.





	Wait

“Déjalo mijo, no te turbes.”

His dead mother’s word of wisdom fill his ears, fill his thoughts; they are cockroaches swarming  in his head, imploring him to believe them.

“Don’t worry son, things will fix themselves later”; it is the worst possible advice to listen to, and Gladstone knows this, _especially now_ , after everything that’s happened.  He plugs his ears, and ignores his mother.  He tries not to feel too guilty about it .

 

Because he _has_ to do something - sitting here and just wishing will get him no where - wishing has only ever left him wanting something bigger than what he got.  He can’t even get _that_ now: it’d be impossible, painful as it to admit it.

 

Dragging himself off from his chair and walking up  to the boxes carrying the bodies feels like the most unfeasible thing in the world to Gladstone, but he does it anyways. He looks down at his parents.

 

They had choked, both of them, at the exact same time and wasn’t that just unlucky. He had watched it happen, powerless to do anything; it was only after someone had arrived, had heard his desperate wails for help - after his parents had dropped, limp and unresponsive - and the swarm of people had surrounded him, trying to push him away from the scene   _//too late, too late, he’d already seen everything. Broken birds, the both of them, layed out like that// -_   that he had realized he could have at least tried the Heimlich Manuever.

 

He could have screamed louder, screamed for his parents who couldn’t make a sound, couldn’t take another breath.  But he’d only stood there in shock, as the crowd had pushed him away, and he had let them; he’d been left alone under a tree.

 _Wait here_ , they said, and Gladstone hadn’t realized he would be so alone after that.

 

Now, as he stands in front of his parents, and other family members try to tear him from his spot in front of the coffins, he fights: he howls, he screeches; he lets out all the air and the noise and the racket he should have made back at the park. His hands hold onto his mamá’s own, and his Uncle Eider has to pry him loose. He’s holding a piece of her sleeve - light blue with a yellow golden lining-  when they finally manage to drag him away; his cousins stay with him in Granma’s buggy, when they lower the coffins into the ground.

 

The ride back to the farm is a silent one, not that Gladstone notices; the chaos in his head is the loudest thing in the buggy. The rest of the day goes by in a blur and when Aunt Matilda comes to tuck him in that night, it’s almost like having his parents with him again.

 

Almost.

**Author's Note:**

> gladstone is possibly out of character, whoops.  
> This is such an old thing I wrote a long time ago.


End file.
